Presentation on vocabulary learning University of Mulawarman,Samarinda East BBorneo Oct 22 2016

1. Professor Stephen J Hall
Centre for English Language Studies
https://www.facebook.com/cels.sunwayu
The W.H questions of
developing vocabulary in the
circus of a low tech classroom.
Centre for English
Language Studies

2. Outline
• Vocab in the classroom circus
• Choosing WHICH words, phrases and sentences
to learn
• WHAT sparks memory traces
• WHY? Matching purposes and word learning
• WHEN and HOW ? Building definition skills
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3. I hope you were listening
to all that!
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4. Write a question you have about learning
new words in another language.
We will come back to this later
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5. As a teacher
• Text driven vs Learning driven
• Lesson plan vs Seizing learning opportunities
• Telling vs Modelling
• One way vs Interactive facilitator
• We will return to these while modelling
Approach and Methods through what we do
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7. • Tasks immediately relevant to classroom use
• No task more than 15 minutes
• Highlighting links to specific target needs
• Signposting the process instead of product
Establish ‘small culture’ norms of all listening to
the speaker
Content choices – what does the
‘ringmaster’ of the circus present
8/6/2007 CfBT and CDC National Meeting August 28 2007

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10. I hope you were listening
to all that!
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11. Centre for English
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12. Raise awareness : Which and Why?
• Choose the right words
• Learn what it means to know a word
• Experience using a word
• Link the word to forms
• Use the word with fluency
• Understand your learning style
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13. What vocab to learn?
• High frequency words (2000 word families)
• Short words
• Content words are the building blocks
• See 1000 General Service List
• Task 1 : Word of the day presentation
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http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/paul-nation

14. How we choose to learn
• Absorbing /Interacting
• Looking
• Listening
• Moving
• Reading
• Speaking
• Writing
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Reading

15. What sparks memory traces? 1
• Phonological hooks ….he was fired soon after
he was hired
• Words that alliterate, chime and rhyme
• Adapted from The Language Gym
• https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/
–great online resource
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16. What sparks memory traces? 2
• Categorizing by meaning and word class;
• Headings can be in L1
• Creating connections and cognitive investment
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17. Interactive Task
• you are trying to memorize the words
• ‘stingy’, ‘argumentative’, ‘noisy’, ‘talkative’, ‘lying’, ‘poor’,
‘lazy’, ‘active’, ‘toned’, ‘smart’, ‘hard-working’, ‘petty’,
‘cheerful’, ‘amusing’, ‘bright’, ‘well-built’, ‘slim’,
‘stunning’, ‘overweight’, ‘bad-tempered’, ‘treacherous’,
‘unstable’, ’dodgy’(slang), ‘choleric’, ‘fit’, ‘affluent’,
‘muscular’, ‘depressed’, ‘elated’, ‘underprivileged’,
‘sneaky’(slang); frustrated’, ‘vindictive’
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18. Categorising
• In the first round you may simply divide them into 2 categories:
Positive and Negative; in the second round into Physical
Appearance, Personality, Emotional states; in the third
round you may want to narrow it down further, as follows:
• (a) Physical fitness: toned, fit, well-built, muscular
• (b) Uplifting emotions: elated, cheerful, elated,
• (c) Money: poor, affluent, rich, underprivileged, stingy
• (d) Dishonesty: sneaky , dodgy, treacherous, lying
• (e) Negative emotions: vindictive, frustrated, bad-tempered,
choleric
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19. What sparks memory traces? 3
• Ordering ,arranging by size,
weight,length, etc
• Eg
• Pebble - stone- rock- cliff- mountain- mountain
range
• Task- peoples’ looks …ugly to…..
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20. What sparks memory traces? 4
• Emotional associations
• Neural connections between words which
are closely associated in other than just
form are strong
• Eg word chain challenge/ meaning
fluency links
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21. Language focus
• 25% should be on form (Nation, Coxhead)
• Both the written form and spoken form are important
• Word stress impacts on understanding
• Task two
• Learning / word Stress/ along with new vocabulary
Murphy, J. New Ways of Teaching Vocabulary. Coxhead, A (Ed.) TESOL Association. P21-24
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22. Centre for English
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Four Strands of Learning a new Language
1
Learning from meaning-focused input (listening
and reading)
2
Learning from meaning-focused output (speaking
and writing)
3
Language-focused learning (studying
pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar etc)
4
Fluency development (getting good at using what
you already know).
All four strands are important and they need roughly
equal amounts of time. (Paul Nation)

23. Content Words: which words
matter
• Start simple and concrete
• Use the 2000 word list
• Set an obtainable target – 7 words a day?
• An interactive task
• Task 3 – use visuals to stimulate structured
responses
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24. Understand learning for knowing or
using target words
• We always know more than we can produce in a
new language
• Find our own strategies- write and cover, use in
a sentence, mapping
• Productive use needs 7 exposures before the
word is inside
• Defining helps and to a task
•
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27. Centre for English
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Defining
Feature
Drum 1
Javanese
Drum 2
Latin -bongos
It has
It is made of
It
We would hear
this

28. High frequency words
• They happen often as they do a lot
• Occur in different contexts
• Useful for understanding and use
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30. An example of creating the big
“UUHH” :Antediluvian
• Form challenges
• Word part challenges
• No context
• No visuals
• No word chunking or collocation
• No register clues- where do we hear or read this
• Low frequency
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31. Principles from research : The How
for useful words?
• Repeating in spaced significant ways
• Seeing and hearing aids memory
• Deciding if it is learning for receptive or
productive use
• Knowing the where, when and how of usage
• Using pictures can help memory
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32. Understand learning for knowing or
using target words
• We always know more than we can produce in a
new language
• Find our own strategies- write and cover, use in
a sentence, mapping
• Productive use needs 7 exposures before the
word is inside
• Defining helps and to a task
•
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33. Word detectives
• Find a useful word to report to the class
• Give its core meaning
• Say and spell it
• Use it in two sentences
• Any prefixes or suffixes
• What other words does it go with ? (collocates)
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34. Building definition skills
• Use simple language
• Use different ways- defining, examples, pictures
• Use translation if it helps
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35. Students learning from each other
• Seeing the words helps (Elley, 1989)
• Talking with other students helps
• Pushing focused fun fluency works
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36. Be mindful of memory decay
• Word activation in context needs repetition
• Most forgetting occurs within first 24 hours of
learning
• Better a few minutes each day
• Google search target words- more frequent
comes first
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37. Play with language
• Listen to music
• Read below your level for fun as you can learn
much
• Set a small workable target
• Use aps and web sites
• Enjoy as words are power
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39. Useful free vocabulary aps – a how
• Memrise
• Duolingo
• http://www.cambridgemobileapps.com/
• Anki
• Busu
• More info at
https://www.facebook.com/cels.sunwayu
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40. Being a reflective teacher/ learner
• Choose one
• Today I learnt…
• Today I felt…
• After today I will…
• The question I had answered was…
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41. Thanks to inspring vocabulary teachers
extraordinarie
• Paul Nation
• Averil Coxshead
• Gianofranco Conti
• And colleagues at CELS Sunway University
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42. Teachers learn from each other
as learners (do)
• Facebook
• Teacher Voices: Professional Development
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43. A question you have about learning new
words in another language.
Later is now no longer later
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44. Thank you for listening
Professor Stephen J Hall
Centre for English Language Studies
https://www.facebook.com/cels.sunwayu
Centre for English
Language Studies